(Mystery Men Comics 029, 1941)
Really very strong showing from the Death Master in the splash panel, with artist Louis Cazenueve (as Lester Raye) doing some great Kirby-esque monster-man work on the man himself.
And the story version of the character almost measures up! The Death Master is head of a counterfeiting gang who completely buys into his own hype - he's a sneering, gloating villain of the type I love.
But why is the Death Master called that? Why, because he can kill a man with but a gesture! He'll mess you up with magic death powers! Well okay - he'll mess you up by shooting poison into your eye using a wrist-mounted poison shooter, which is still pretty hard to do. Plus you're just as dead as if it was done with magic.
The Death Master is in fact such a good over the top bombastic villain that is is for once somewhat surprising to learn that he is acting as a lieutenant for Mr Hunter, the "famous criminologist" who accompanied the prosecutor to his doom in the panels above. It's a pretty good scheme, though perhaps it would have been better to beg off helping to pursue the Death Master rather than bump off the pursuer.
In any case, the Lynx figures out the scheme and brings in not only Mr Hunter but the Death Master via the simple method of shielding his eyes, which is where you want to have magic death powers I suppose. Also if you ever meet a foe with goggles or large glasses.
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